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“I always wondered.” He gives me a lop-sided grin, and if it weren’t so devilishly handsome, I would smack it right off his face. “O is for optimistic, W is for warmhearted—”
“Stop! I remember, I remember!”
His fingers hold to mine, his thumb tracing lines over my wrist. “Why didn’t you ever confess?”
My lips, gums, and inner cheeks pull together as if I have been sucking on a sour War Head. “Why didn’t you?”
“Fair,” he says.
“And that’s two questions—you’ve got one left and then something personal.” I swallow and blink away from his eye contact.
“Okay—one more.” He threads his fingers through mine, entwining our digits one by one. “When did your feelings for me go away?”
The fact is, I don’t know. I don’t know when–or honestly–if they ever faded. I just know that one day, I woke up and I knew that I never wanted a day without Owen. I couldn’t lose him like I’d lost half a dozen boyfriends before him.
49
Annie
“I
’m honestly not sure.”
“It was a long time ago.” He gives me a grin—the most merciful, forgiving grin any man has ever worn. I should be able to answer this one question for him. But I don’t know how to, and Owen is the kind of man to give me grace.
It’s no wonder that Lucy Bailey was blessed with four sons. She knows what she’s doing in raising them.
“One personal fact about me—” Owen starts.
“I know you, Owen. And the biggest secret of all is out there now. That, and a few baby secrets. I still can’t believe you don’t like the Cowboys.”
His fingers squeeze around mine. “I know. I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. I will laugh every time the Cowboys kick—wait, who is your favorite then?”
“The—”
“Bengals,” I finish for him.
Owen nods.
“Yeah, I saw you eyeing Logan Wilson last week.” I roll my eyes and give a small scoff, carefully retrieving my hand fromOwen’s. “The Bengals. Fine. I will laugh at you every time the Cowboys beat the Bengals.”
“Deal,” Owen says, his full lips still sprouting a grin. He’s making it so hard to look away. If only that smile would falter.
“There—your one personal.” I blink, breaking my gaze with Owen’s lips, and return my attention back to the meal he made. The next twenty minutes are filled with fairly normal chatter and eating. Just me and Owen—like always.
Somehow the babble of nothingness gives me hope that we will be normal again one day.One day—when our time is up. When fate decides to tell Owen he’s over me, we’ll go back to being us.
“Annie,” he says when there isn’t anything left for either of us to eat. His hand reaches for mine once more.
I stand, though, clutching my fingers at the edges of my dinner plate. “I’ll do the dishes.”
“You don’t need to do that,” Owen says, standing with me. “I have a movie set up in the living room and—”
Yeah, I saw that living room—dim lights, more candles, and some old Julia Roberts romcom in the cue.
I will be washing every last dish.
